|
UNCOMMON KNOWLEDGE
: BROWSE BY DATE
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999
1998
The world with Václav Klaus
|
Taped on November 06, 2009 |
| In retelling his experience of living through the Velvet Revolution, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the lifting of the Iron Curtain, Czech Republic president Václav Klaus offers his views on what students today need to understand about life under communism. |
The Iran problem with Hanson and Baer
|
Taped on October 20, 2009 |
| Does Iran possess the ability to produce nuclear weapons? Both Bob Baer and Victor Hanson agree that it does. On the questions that flow from this assertion, agreement is more difficult to find. |
Health Care Reform with David Brady and Daniel Kessler
|
Taped on October 06, 2009 |
| Brady and Kessler combine the insights of a political scientist with those of an economist and offer unique observations into the political forces and policies at play in the current health care debate. |
The Law and More with Judge Laurence Silberman
|
Taped on August 05, 2009 |
| In Parker v. the District of Columbia, Judge Silberman wrote the 2007 opinion striking down parts of the District of Columbia’s ban on handguns as unconstitutional. |
The Age of Reagan with Steven Hayward
|
Taped on August 21, 2009 |
| Discussing his new book, The Age of Reagan: The Conservative Counterrevolution, Hayward asserts that Ronald Reagan was one of the most consequential presidents in American history. |
Trotsky per Hitchens and Service
|
Taped on July 28, 2009 |
| Leon Trotsky, one of the leading figures of the Russian October Revolution, remains a controversial figure. |
Lincoln with Harry Jaffa
|
Taped on July 13, 2009 |
| In a year that marks the two hundredth year since the birth of Lincoln, and the fiftieth year since the publication of his own Crisis of the House Divided, Harry Jaffa discusses Lincoln as a thinker and philosopher as well as the great import of the Lincoln-Douglas debates and their lasting influence on American society. |
Housing with Thomas Sowell
|
Taped on June 29, 2009 |
| Thomas Sowell analyzes the recent housing boom and bust, beginning with the underlying economic causes that artificially inflated housing costs in certain markets. |
Africa with Dambisa Moyo
|
Taped on June 12, 2009 |
| During the past fifty years, more than $1 trillion in development-related aid has been transferred from rich countries to Africa. |
The Politics of Hollywood with Andrew Breitbart
|
Taped on May 05, 2009 |
| Identified as “one of the ten most important people in the media that nobody’s ever met,” Andrew Breitbart details why leftward-leaning Hollywood is dangerous for America and why the people who run it are “uninteresting,” “vitriolic,” and “vicious.” |
The Environment with Steven Hayward
|
Taped on April 30, 2009 |
Hayward challenges the established narrative of environmentalism, beginning with the notion that the earth is fragile and that we have little time to save it from environmental catastrophe. He deconstructs the case for global warming (including “cap and trade” plans to limit greenhouse gas emissions and the new EPA “endangerment finding” on CO2 ) and speaks to the challenges faced by poor countries as they seek to modernize and at the same time reduce the pollution that has historically accompanied modernization. Finally, he offers his insights into the deep structure of environmentalism that substitutes a human apocalypse for a religious one.
(34:41) Video transcript |
The Aussie Way with John Howard
|
Taped on April 23, 2009 |
Prime Minister Howard offers insights into Australia’s own “special relationship” with the United States beginning with why Australia’s participation in the Iraq war was in his nation’s best interest. Echoing parallels with the United States, he offers his views on multiculturalism—which he calls “a very confused credo”—and Australia’s role in the “Anglosphere,” particularly as it relates to China, its largest and most powerful Asian neighbor. He speaks of the current financial crisis and the need to remain confident in the market and the dangers of overregulation. Finally, he answers “What should Americans know about Australia that we don’t?”
(39:35 ) Video transcript |
At War with General Jack Keane
|
Taped on March 25, 2009 |
During his thirty-seven years in the U.S. Army, Jack Keane earned four stars. Beginning his career as a paratrooper in Vietnam, he rose to command both the 101st Airborne Division and the 18th Airborne Corps. In his final post he served as the Army’s vice chief of staff. General Keane retired from active duty in 2003.
In 2006, General Keane and military historian Frederick Kagan helped develop a new approach to the Iraq war that would become known as “the surge.” How did we arrive at that point in 2006 when the entire war effort in Iraq hung in the balance – why did the war go so badly for so long? General Keane gives an insider’s account of this pivotal time in the Iraq war and of the resistance encountered within the military to that dramatic change in strategy. Keane discusses the lessons to be learned from the Iraq War and how to define and achieve victory in Afghanistan. Finally, he deals with the overall question of the military force structure and the danger of becoming preoccupied with the threat of terrorism and insurgencies and thus risking being unable to confront a conventional power.
(37:46 ) Video transcript |
Crisis and the Law with Richard Epstein
|
Taped on March 23, 2009 |
Considered one if the most influential legal thinkers of modern times, Richard Epstein, the Peter and Kirsten Bedford Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, brings his libertarian views to bear on the current financial crisis—“government incentives were perverse, so the actions of the private parties were perverse”—and rates the performances of George Bush and Barack Obama in their responses to the crisis. He speaks to the importance of contracts and the constitutionality of the “expo facto” taxation on AIG executives and the Employee Free Choice Act embraced by President Obama. Finally he speaks of his personal and professional dealings with Barack Obama when they were law school faculty mates at the University of Chicago. (38:22 ) Video transcript |
Law and Justice with Antonin Scalia
|
Taped on February 23, 2009 |
The Constitution “is not living, but dead.” With these words Associate Justice Scalia sums up how he believes we should think about the Constitution – a way of thinking that underpins the theory of “originalism” which guides his approach to cases that come before the Supreme Court. In expounding on originalism, Scalia takes the Court to task on past decisions, including Roe v. Wade, and measures just how far the Court can and should go in reversing these mistakes. (37:24 ) Video transcript |
The World According to John Bolton
|
Taped on February 23, 2009 |
“Were we right to go to war in Iraq?” With this question as a point of departure, Peter Robinson explores with Ambassador Bolton our foreign policy successes and failures during the Bush years and assesses the current challenges from the usual suspects: North Korea, Russia, and Iran. Bolton sees a power shift in the Middle East that would be fundamental, calamitous, and irreversible should Iran get nuclear weapons. (36:26 ) Video transcript |
Ferguson and Long on Obama, Lincoln, and More
|
Taped on January 30, 2009 |
How close in style and substance is Barack Obama to Abraham Lincoln,
one of our greatest presidents, who also hailed from Illinois and
emerged from a humble background to lead our nation in a time of
crisis? Ferguson and Long examine the first inaugural addresses of
both men to explore the parallels between the two and offer insights
into how President Obama will guide our nation. (36:54 ) Video transcript |
Immigration with Mark Krikorian
|
Taped on January 14, 2009 |
Peter Robinson challenges Mark Krikorian to explain why America -- a nation of immigrants -- should now adopt anti-immigration policies. Krikorian responds by asserting that
mass immigration is fundamentally incompatible with a modern society, that it causes a serious erosion of sovereignty, and that it
creates a net economic burden on the government. Finally, he details the dangers of transnationalism and multiculturalism that are inherent in immigration today and gives his prescription for solving the problem. (34:52 ) Video transcript |
Intelligence and Security with James Woolsey
|
Taped on January 14, 2009 |
James Woolsey discusses the failure of the intelligence community in the run-up to the Iraq war and considers Barak Obama’s selection of Leon Panetta to head the CIA in light of the historical relationship between the president and the CIA director. He outlines the challenges the intelligent community faces in what he calls America’s war against “theocratic totalitarianism.” Finally, he asserts that it is imperative for us to destroy oil as a strategic commodity – not only for our security but also for the good of the planet. (36:56 ) Video transcript |
Crisis Management with John Taylor
|
Taped on December 15, 2008 |
What are the lessons we learned -- and perhaps unlearned -- that permitted the American economy, once so convulsive, to grow in such a robust and sustained way for the last quarter of a century? Economist John Taylor discusses today’s financial crisis, which he labels the most “unusual” crisis since the Great Depression. He identifies a number of factors contributing to the crisis, but locates its origins in the monetary excesses of the Fed. In outlining what the government should and should not do in response to the crisis, he concludes that it will be tragic if we forget all we have learned over the past two and a half decades about the importance of the private sector and the free market. (36:20) Video transcript |
|
FOLLOW THE HOOVER INSTITUTION:
|
